by Michael T. Shishido

I was sitting at the mall one night. It’s an indoor mall with two large monitors that display advertising and announcements. I don’t think I’ve ever seen these monitors used in a sensible way to market any business or service that paid to be there.

That night, the ad that struck me was one for a local private school. They also advertise with the radio station I work at, so I know this school is trying to promote its upcoming open house.

What I saw on the indoor monitors was a collection of TV commercials strung back to back, interspersed with announcements about some activities at the mall. What does that tell you about indoor advertising? No one takes it seriously enough to produce a commercial designed for indoor advertising on a monitor in a shopping mall.

Most indoor advertisers I’ve seen just re-purpose their existing TV ad. Big mistake. Your advertising needs to consider the medium it’s being seen or heard on. That font that looks fine on TV, turns out to be the fine print that no one reads.

Here’s the thing with indoor video advertising: if people are watching it, they’re viewing it from 50+ feet away with no sound. It’s less like TV (even though it’s shown on a video monitor), and more like a really small billboard.

In my estimation, what works best is a three- or four-slide presentation. Think Powerpoint or Keynote. And use a huge font. Something that you can read at a distance of 50 feet with no problem. Then it should be a message that is conveyed in three or four slides. In the case of this private school, it would have read like this:

• Slide #1: SCHOOL NAME
• Slide #2: BENEFIT, BENEFIT, BENEFIT (in bullet points)
• Slide #3: COME TO OUR OPEN HOUSE
• Slide #4: ADDRESS, PHONE, WEBSITE

This is an easy chunk of information to consume. And maybe even memorable, if it’s important to the customer.

This Getty photo was originally posted on huffingtonpost.com 8/1/2013